Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…

Monday, December 10, 2012

The Kremlin’s willingness to employ aggressive — even illegal — measures to suppress the political critics of Putin

For two and a half days in October, Leonid Razvozzhayev, a little-known
leader of the Russian political opposition, moved furtively from one
part of Kiev to another, meeting with political allies and human rights
experts about seeking asylum in the West. At times, he was sure he was
being followed. He was right.

On a Friday afternoon in clear daylight, masked men grabbed Mr.
Razvozzhayev and shoved him into a black van outside the office of a
lawyer who was preparing his asylum application on behalf of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The van sped away. Mr.
Razvozzhayev’s personal belongings were left behind. More than the
prosecution of the punk band Pussy Riot or the criminal inquiries into
numerous opposition figures, the abduction of Mr. Razvozzhayev has
showcased the Kremlin’s willingness to employ aggressive — even illegal —
measures to suppress the political critics of President Vladimir V. Putin.

It also fits a pattern of recent cases in which people seeking
protection in Ukraine were instead returned to the countries they fled,
in violation of Ukrainian law as well as international laws and treaties
that protect asylum seekers.

… “We see a problem of disrespect for international law on the part of
Ukraine,” said Maksim Butkevych, a rights advocate with Social Action
Center in Kiev.

… “If any government was complicit in the abduction of Leonid
Razvozzhayev, that government committed a grave violation of Mr.
Razvozzhayev’s right under the 1951 Refugee Convention to be protected
from involuntary return,” said Mark Hetfield, the interim president of
the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a nonprofit group whose lawyers in
Ukraine were preparing Mr. Razvozzhayev’s asylum application.

After Mr. Razvozzhayev resurfaced two days later outside a Moscow
courthouse in Russian custody, Vladimir Markin, the spokesman for Russia’s
top federal investigator, insisted that he had “turned himself in” — an
assertion flatly contradicted by interviews with Mr. Razvozzhayev’s
wife, lawyers and associates who saw him in Kiev. While Russia could
have requested his extradition legally, international rights monitors
say Ukraine routinely flouts normal procedures.

… Mr. Butkevych said that kidnappings were rare but that asylum seekers
were routinely deported or extradited from Ukraine in violation of their
rights. “In general terms, Ukraine is not a safe country,” Mr.
Butkevych said. “For some people, especially those people who are
actually wanted by their countries of origin, it can be dangerous.”

That certainly proved true for Mr. Razvozzhayev, a former amateur boxer
and native of Siberia who has long been a close associate of Sergei
Udaltsov, the leader of the Left Front, a radical socialist group that
is at the core of the Russian political opposition.

Mr. Razvozzhayev’s lawyers say that after he was abducted, he was driven
across the Russian border, held for nearly two days in the basement of a
house, denied food and subjected to what has been described as
psychological torture, including death threats against his family.

They said he was also forced to write and sign a 10-page confession,
admitting to allegations first raised in early October in a documentary
on NTV, a government-controlled television channel. The film showed Mr.
Udaltsov, Mr. Razvozzhayev and others, in what was said to be a meeting
in Minsk, in Belarus, appealing for financial assistance from a
political operative from Georgia, the former Soviet republic.